The last time we heard Gregg Williams’ voice, it was screaming about killing heads. The next time, it will be asking for another chance.

Not to injure opponents, but to coach against them. If all goes as expected, the mastermind of Bountygate will be back in business.

Tennessee is expected to hire Williams as assistant head coach of its defense. He must first meet with Roger Goodell and promise to never again pay a player $500 when they bring him the still-beating heart of a dead wide receiver.

A lot of people thought Williams would never coach after his tactics were exposed. A lot more thought he should never coach again. They forgot this is the NFL.

We could start at the top with Leonard Little, who committed vehicular manslaughter. He learned his lesson so well he was picked up for DUI six years later.

But in the interest of finishing this column before preseason camps open, I won’t list the players who got second chances. Let’s just say the All-Reprobate Team now has a coach.

As for his real team, Tennessee figures Williams can’t do any worse than defensive coordinator Jerry Gray. And the Titans sure don't care that President Obama wouldn’t let his daughters play for a coach like Williams (see the latest issue of The New Republic).

The guy gets results. The most interesting thing will be watching to see if Williams can get them without sounding like a psychopath.

The tape of his speech before the 49ers playoff game two years ago became the smoking gun of Bountygate. Pay-for-pain schemes aren’t new, but Williams was strikingly remorseless.

If he’d been born a few centuries earlier, you could easily imagine him putting on a black hood every morning then running the torture rack in a medieval prison. And loving his job.

“Kill the head,” Williams said, “the body will die.”

He singled out certain heads. Like Kyle Williams’, which was coming off a concussion.

“We need to find out in the first two series of the game, the little wide receiver, No. 10, about his concussion. We need to (bleep) put a lick on him, move him to decide. He needs to decide.”

He changed the focus to Michael Crabtree’s knees.

“We need to decide whether Crabtree wants to be a fake-ass prima donna or he wants to be a tough guy. We need to find that out, and he becomes human when you (bleep) take out that outside ACL.”

He circled back to Frank Gore and Vernon Davis.

“We need to decide how many times we can meet Frank Gore’s head. We need to decide how many times we can bull rush and we can (bleep) clip Vernon Davis’ ankles over the pile.”

A lot of people got all worked up when they heard the tape. A lot of players got up in a different way when they heard Williams live. His career was built on aggressive schemes and attitude.

He was so good the Redskins paid him like a head coach (about $2.6 million a year). Williams would run down the price list of bounties on opposing players in pregame meetings.

“Gregg could drop gay slurs like the best of ‘em,” a player facetiously told the Washington Post. “Some of the things that came out of mouth didn’t need to be said.”

Sean Payton took a $250,000 pay cut to help bring Williams to New Orleans.

It was worth it. Drew Brees got a defense and the Saints won the Super Bowl.

Along came Bountygate and out went Williams. Goodell suspended him indefinitely. Now, Williams is just a parole hearing from getting back out on the sidelines.

If Gore’s head or Crabtree’s ACL really were represented at the hearing, they’d argue that Williams can’t be trusted.

“Never apologize for the way we compete,” he told players in the tape. “If you’re in this room, you understand that. We don’t apologize.”

When Williams is introduced in Tennessee, he’ll be bursting with apologies. His pregame speeches will probably sound like Joel Osteen sermons.

He’ll say he’s learned from his mistakes and just wants a shot at redemption. We’ve heard it all before.

Sometimes it’s true, and you have Michael Vick. Sometimes it’s not, and you have Lawrence Phillips.

Either way, this is the NFL.

If you are allowed to play after killing a person, you certainly can coach after trying to maim one.